Recently, as you may have noticed, the sport of slackline has been exploding in popularity. It’s been all over the news, in Nike commercials, college campuses, and city parks. In the past few weeks I have been taking part in weekly slackline sessions with local Vancouver slackline enthusiasts. (If you’re in the Vancouver area, we meet at Kitsilano Beach every Monday at 6pm, come on down!) While slacklining on the beach one evening durring the Vancouver Folk Fest a friend mentioned there was an upcoming slackline festival in Squamish. So I went.

This festival was definitely not your typical festival. If you’re not familiar with Squamish, many describe it as the the Yosemite counterpart of Canada. There is a lifetime of climbing to be done in Squamish. Of course today we were here to slackline. HevyFest was set at Nexon beach, the sparse architecture there was as if an Antoni Gaudi was into climbing and had a spare afternoon at Nexon beach. The organizers had setup huge burly logs set in concrete in a square configuration which allowed for some interesting line configurations.

Slackline Backflip

I brought my threaded line and rigged it a medium length, which we really tightened down hard. This thing is a ton of fun to surf and jump.

After some warming up on the low lines, we headed over to the water line. (Thanks Matt for rigging it) This thing was nuts! At least thirty meters long, made of of a single strand of tubular webbing. The tension on this line did make us a little nervous. Earlier that morning the wind had been pretty strong and the line was proving to be a sail. This line was making some pretty insane noises as it whipped all around. This line proved more challenging than it looked. I made it a little past halfway perhaps. Next year we’ll rig it again and see if it wants to be walked.

Walking a slacklie over the ocean

Falling

falling into the water

In all, HevyFest 2008 was a success, thanks to Hevy and everyone who helped put it on. Let’s do it every year!

And the rest of the photos… Click here to view these photos in Flickr.